Current openings:
Director – Center for Environmental and Rural Health

In 1989, faculty from six Colleges and seventeen Departments within the Texas A&M University, the USDA Food and Animal Protection Laboratory, and Texas A&M University-Galveston formed the Interdisciplinary Faculty of Toxicology (IFT). The new IFT represented a unique model for developing a graduate program that encompasses students and faculty from different administrative units. The IFT has since served as a successful graduate program with over 115 Ph.D. degrees awarded over the last 10 years. The major scientific themes of the IFT include cellular and molecular toxicology, reproductive and neurotoxicology, environmental and food safety research. All of these areas play an integral role in the other key ongoing environmental health sciences programs at this University. Currently, over 45 graduate students are enrolled in the Toxicology graduate program.
The development of the IFT as a collaborative interdisciplinary research and training program has directly contributed to the success of faculty in competing for several major National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded grants in the Environmental Health Sciences. In 1992, Texas A&M University was awarded a training grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and this grant was successfully renewed in 1997 and 2002. This was one of the first NIH-training grants awarded to faculty at Texas A&M University and has served as a model for the current development of other training grants in the Life Sciences.
The Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP) was initially funded by NIEHS in 1989 and has since been successfully renewed three times and is currently funded from 2000-2005. The program has combined faculty from the Colleges of Medicine, Science, Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, Agricultural and Life Sciences and the Health Sciences Center. Research projects are directed at characterizing contaminant-sensitive genotypes, molecular mechanisms of endocrine disruption, and genotoxic and non-genotoxic endpoints associated with diverse classes of chemicals occurring in Superfund sites. One research project is developing chemical intervention strategies for water purification, which includes porous, clay-based adsorbents with the ability to filter, decontaminate, and detoxify polluted groundwater.
The Center for Environmental and Rural Health provides a forum for promotion of outstanding basic and applied science programs focusing on the impact of environmental factors on human health and disease in rural communities. Investigators' research efforts are supported by centralized core facilities that advance the scientific discovery process, enhance the quality of research programs, and attract young faculty into the field of environmental health sciences. Together these grants bring to Texas A&M over $3 million dollars per year, as well as considerable individual research grants. Thus, Environmental Health Science research at this University is now one of the preeminent programs in the United States.
Based on measures of external funding and the number of graduates, Texas A&M University is now recognized as one of the national leaders in Environmental Health Science research and training.